HSCC 40th Anniversary Silverstone Meeting 20th May 2006 - Historic Formula Junior Race

As seems to be the norm this season, a wet track greeted the drivers, when they lined up for the Qualifying session.

Qualifying began for the Formula Juniors prompt at 9am. Understandably the times were a good 20 secs off the normal pace for the National circuit.
Quickest was the Mark Gilles Lotus 20 with a time of 1.27.653. Mike Hibberd's Lotus 27 was next .9 of a second in arrears.
A close third overall and easily best of the front engined runners was the Lola Mk2 of John Truslove, he was a couple of tenths quicker than Mark Woodhouse Lotus 20/22 in fourth.
Steve Smith Cooper T59 was fifth. Crispian Besley Elva 100 made up the top six qualifiers.
Best in class B was the Cooper T56 of Chaz Jones ahead of a surprisingly subdued Simon Armer 's Cooper T59, Simon usually relishes the challenge of a wet track. Andrew Hibberd Lotus 22 called in the pits twice to adjust his settings to suit the wet conditions, losing a couple of laps in the process.
Paul Davis in his Lotus 20 was the sole runner in class C1and completed nine laps in the 15 minutes to qualify twenty first out of the twenty two cars in the session.

The dismal weather continued thoughout the morning, the outlook for the race was gloomy, then magic, the sky cleared the sun shone and the track dried out, all this just in time for the of the start of our race the first on the programme.

Race One was scheduled for twenty minutes, the red lights went out at 12.56 pm a few minutes early. As the field streamed away on the first lap the early leader was Mark Woodhouse in his Lotus 20/22 he was quickly under pressure from Mike Hibberd in the Lotus 27, until as Len Selby later reported "the 27 got into the tow at the end of the straight and you could see the speed surge and Mike was through into the lead". Mark was hanging on well until on the third lap his clutch stopped working and all his gear-changing after that was clutchless. Steve Smith T59 was holding third spot ahead of Mark Gillies Lotus 20. Fifth and Sixth positions were being contested fiercely by Paul Smeeth and Andrew Hibberd both in Lotus 22's in what turned out to be a race long repeat of their Brands Hatch battle. Barry Westmoreland in his Lotus 22 was closing on the Simon Armer Cooper T59 but his lowly grid placing was too much to overcome. All change on lap nine when Steve Smith had his engine cut out in the complex, he coasted into the pits, when he pressed the starter it fired up again and ran perfectly. He completed one more lap before retiring and all the runners behind second man Mark Woodhouse, who was still doing a sterling job without a clutch, moved up a place. The class A2 leader was John Truslove in his Lola Mk2 Bill Grimshaw was well in touch in the Moorland Mk1, with Crispian Besley a couple of seconds away in class third. Best in class B was John Sykes in his Lotus 20.
The leaders managed 18 laps in the twenty-minute race and Mike Hibberd's Lotus 27 was just 3.3 seconds ahead at the end. Mark Gillies Lotus 20 was a distant third just ahead of the Paul Smeeth/ Andrew Hibberd Lotus 22 contest which lasted until the last lap when Andrew overdid it at Becketts and lost several seconds, but he recovered to finish fifth ahead of Simon Armer in the T59.
John Truslove took class A1 honours John Sykes Lotus 20 class B, Paul Davis Lotus 20 class C1, Peter Mullen OSCA class A1.

Winner and first in class C2          Mike Hibberd           Lotus 27
Second                                            Mark Woodhouse    Lotus 20/22
Third                                                Mark Gillies              Lotus 20

Winner class A2                             John Truslove          Lola Mk2

Winner class B                               ?

Winner class C1                             Paul Davis                 Lotus 20

Winner class A1                             Peter Mullen              OSCA.

Fastest lap         Mike Hibberd Lotus 27  1.06.356  (88.92 mph)  

The presentation of awards, took place in the pit garage and was presided over by Peter Jackson. He introduced Ian Raby Jun who was at Silverstone to watch Bill Grimshaw drive the Moorland Mk1 into second place in it's class. Ian Raby's father drove the Moorland to it's first race win in period and went on to drive Grand Prix cars.

Stan Hibberd 23rd May 2006.